The Royal Navy has tested uncrewed and autonomous technology alongside its US and Australian counterparts to demonstrate how the three AUKUS allies could protect critical undersea infrastructure, the Royal Navy stated.
Exercise Lanternfish ran for six weeks, split between Virginia and Washington in the United States and waters off the south-western coast of Australia. Royal Navy divers and hydrographic experts ran remotely operated systems alongside American and Australian personnel. The exercise was conducted under the AUKUS Pillar 2 agreement, which focuses on the accelerated deployment of advanced military capabilities by the three nations.
The team from the Diving and Threat Exploitation Group demonstrated the VideoRay Defender, a small remotely operated submersible used to locate mines and underwater explosive devices. Experts from the Hydrographic Exploitation Group, based at Devonport, launched their Teledyne Gavia autonomous underwater system, whose modular design allows it to carry out varied missions depending on its sensor fit.
According to the Royal Navy, the systems were used to survey critical undersea infrastructure and rehearse responses to potential hostile activity in a realistic setting, operating as part of a wider ecosystem of sensors and underwater vehicles. The aim was to improve how the nations detect, monitor and respond to threats below the surface, sharing expertise and developing common operating procedures.
Lieutenant Commander Mark Wilton, from the Hydrographic Exploitation Group, was quoted in the press release as saying: “Our Seabed Warfare team worked extremely closely with our AUKUS partners, demonstrating true integration through the seamless use of Royal Australian Navy equipment when required. We completed a number of Gavia missions on the exercise, acoustic calibration, night-time and independent, unaided. The team really delivered and their qualified and experienced personnel have grown exponentially.”
Commodore Marcus Rose, Deputy Director Defence Underwater, was quoted in the press release as saying: “These events provide a fantastic opportunity to test our interoperability in a real world setting and allow us to iterate our capabilities at pace.”
The Royal Navy linked the exercise to rising threats to undersea infrastructure from foreign state actors, citing the covert operations of a Russian submarine in and around UK waters earlier this year. It said the trial reflected the service’s transition towards a Hybrid Navy, in which crewed and uncrewed capabilities work alongside one another. Planning for the next AUKUS Pillar 2 operational exercise, intended to demonstrate integration across maritime, air, cyber and space domains, is already under way.
AUKUS, the trilateral partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States announced in 2021, is structured around two pillars. The first covers the provision of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, while the second, under which Lanternfish was run, concerns cooperation on advanced capabilities including undersea systems, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and hypersonics.
